Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton
Directed By: Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr.
Screenplay By: Eric Heisserer
Based on the Short Story “Who Goes There?” By: John W. Campbell Jr.
Produced By: Marc Abraham & Eric Newman
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Rating: R
Running Time: 103 minutes
Website: thethingmovie.net
Budget: $35 million (estimated)
Genre: Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi
Release Date: October 14, 2011
In The Thing, a group of scientists excavating an alien crash site accidentally set free a cunning monster that can assume the form of any living being. It isn’t long before the patchwork group of Norwegians and Americans from varying levels of society begin to suspect each other of secretly being the enemy. As their numbers dwindle, tensions rise, and the humans become their own greatest threat to survival.
Set against the lifeless frozen expanses of Antarctica, The Thing is a sharp study in isolation and xenophobia. Quarantined in a remote research facility with no way to contact the outside world, all of the characters’ strengths and flaws become magnified. The dispassionate doctor in charge of the mission (Ulrich Thomsen, Season of the Witch) becomes increasingly cold and standoffish. The hearty and good-natured Norwegian becomes almost super-humanly heroic. And the American paleontologist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) becomes a bad-ass, flamethrower-wielding monster hunter who quickly starts giving the orders.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to spend enough time with most of these characters before the mission begins to be truly invested in their death or survival. The filmmakers introduce a large number of characters within a very short time period, and worse, most of them are plain-looking bearded men in bad ‘80s sweaters. At times, it’s hard to tell which character we’re looking at as they’re fighting for their lives.
While this is almost unavoidable in a film that requires a large number of bodies to ratchet up the tension, it’s inexcusable in regard to the main character. We spend all of five minutes in Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s American lab before everyone shuttles off to Antarctica, and most of that time is eaten up by exposition. There is the slightest hint of a former relationship with Thomsen’s research assistant Eric Christian Olsen (“Community”), but we never get a real sense of who the character is supposed to be.
Winstead does an admirable job given very little to work with, and she makes the transformation from interested onlooker to group leader to Ripley-esque heroine believable, always retaining a hint of exhaustion. She is stepping out of her comfort zone only because she has to – her power comes solely from the resentment of her situation. When she has to dispose of a character she’s grown to know, there is a sadness in her eyes. She is a monster killer with a conscience.
The film works best during the tense moments of debate among the crew. Removed from the standards of society and placed in extreme circumstances, their morality shifts and twists to more extreme acts. Sides are initially chosen by nationality, or language, or existing relationships. As the film progresses, those traditional measures of safety are all abandoned.
The film suffers when director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. places The Thing front and center. Like most screen monsters, it is more effective the less we see of it. By continually relying on big reveals to showcase his teams’ practical and CG work, he robs his film of its best source of tension.
The film is also unclear about The Thing’s methods; sometimes it eats people whole and makes a copy of them, sometimes it infects a human host and turns them into a monster and sometimes body parts fall off an infected host and become mini-Things. By being so inconsistent, it’s difficult for the audience to know when someone may or may not be a danger. That may have been intentional on the filmmakers’ part, but it almost seems like cheating.
The Thing is a prequel to John Carpenter’s seminal The Thing (1982), which itself is a remake of The Thing from Another World (1951), which was adapted from a short story entitled “Who Goes There?” This version was hardly necessary, but it’s by no means a hatchet job. It’s a taut, effective thriller that’s short on characterization and big on effects shots, but will leave most audience members entertained.
3 Stars (out of 5)
